Toolkit

The resources provided on this page are not created or maintained by PACIE, but we hope you find them useful in your work to promote international education in Pennsylvania. If you have suggestions for additional resources, please contact us at pacie@pacie.org.

Global Job Exchange

Ideas for Educators

The cliché that it takes a village is appropriate for the global competence movement. No one individual or entity can accomplish the job that lies ahead. Mansilla and Jackson in their book, Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youth to Engage the World, offer a comprehensive but concise summary of the work global minded stakeholders must embrace. Click below to see how you can get more involved.

Teachers: What can you do?

Create professional learning communities supporting collaborative work to thoughtfully infuse the curriculum with opportunities for students to investigate and analyze issues of global significance.

Target high-leverage entry points within the curriculum to engage students in rigorous global inquiry, using national, local, and school expectations.

Connect your classroom and curriculum to cultural and educational institutions that can further opportunities for students to learn to investigate the world, recognize perspectives, communicate with divediverse audiences, and take action.

Develop your own global competence.

School and District Leaders: What can you do?

Lead your education communities in developing a deep understanding of the importance of global competence for the success of every student and in considering what a school’s mission should be in the 21st century.

Create opportunities for your schools to systematically investigate how addressing matters of global significance can become a mainstay of a school’s culture—reflected in its structures, practices, and relationships with people and institutions outside the school.

Pilot new and strengthen existing approaches to promote global competence, from new course offerings in world languages and other internationally focused content to globally focused service learning and internships to international travel and virtual exchange opportunities for students and teachers.

Feature best practices stemming from your schools and communities. Create conditions for interested stakeholders (teachers, administrators, parents, businesses) to reflect about the opportunities embedded in best practices and what can be done to support them and expand their reach.

Colleges and Universities: What can you do?

Prepare globally competent graduates who understand the world and are ready to participate critically and creatively in it through their chosen fields of work and study.

Retool teacher preparation programs to integrate international learning opportunities and substantially strengthen requirements and support for developing the capacity among prospective teachers to teach for global competence.

Encourage scholarly research and program evaluation to deepen understanding of the demands and opportunities of global competence education. Such work may range from revealing basic socio-cognitive processes involved in the development of global competence; to measuring the impact of diverse approaches to integrating global competence in K–12 curriculum, assessment, and instruction; to examining the role of global competence education in school improvement; to transforming poorly performing schools; and to taking well-functioning schools from “good to great.”

Prioritize the development of global competence as part of the mission and institutional practice of higher education to ensure that learning how to investigate, communicate, and act within a global economy and interdependent world becomes an essential element of what it means to be a well-educated person in the 21st century.

Education Policymakers: What can you do?

Review existing policies, programs, and funding priorities to consider whether they systematically promote the development of global competence among all populations served by schools.

Recruit, develop, and sustain personnel and policy review committees that have the knowledge, understanding, and desire to promote global understanding and perspectives in teaching.

Envision and require formative and summative performance-based assessments to provide opportunities for students to demonstrate and develop global competence through authentic performances and other valid and equitable measures of learning.